Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
August 2005 activity
Total Log Entries: 40
- Adam (0)
- Andrew (0)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (0)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (0)
- Jenny (0)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (7)
- Megan (0)
- Rumsey (9)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (1)
- Timothy (0)
- Victoria (0)
Total Comments: 8
- Three on a Match (0)
- Clash by Night (0)
- The Aristocrats (0)
- Red Eye (0)
- Peter Ibbetson (0)
- Flamingo Road (0)
- The Brothers Grimm (0)
- Gung Ho (1)
- The Paper (0)
- Stuck on You (0)
- Tightrope (0)
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (0)
- The Spy Who Loved Me (1)
- Madonna: Truth or Dare (0)
- The 40 Year-Old Virgin (0)
- Broken Flowers (1)
- Grizzly Man (0)
- Z Channel (1)
- Paperboys (0)
- Deformer (0)
- The Conformist (0)
- Top Hat (0)
- Bowery at Midnight (0)
- Don’t Look Back (0)
- Dead Man (0)
- Vernon, Florida (0)
- The Long Goodbye (1)
- Errol Morris’ First Person (0)
- Mr. Skeffington (0)
- L.A. Story (1)
- The Man Who Played God (0)
- The Aristocrats (0)
- West Side Story (0)
- Broken Flowers (0)
- Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (1)
- Your Friends & Neighbors (0)
- Wedding Crashers (1)
- Seconds (0)
- Looking for Richard (0)
- Must Love Dogs (0)
Full Archive
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory / USA / 2005
First off, I consider the original Chocolate Factory an excellent film; it’s very cleverly subversive, and it’s aged well. Second, Tim Burton is an immensely creative figure – perhaps even the most singular creative force in contemporary Hollywood – and it’s shameful that his recent films (three of them remakes) seem to announce the demise of his creative prowess—even the trailer for The Corpse Bride is unavoidably evocative of The Nightmare Before Christmas. These films are purely capitalist exercises, and successful ones at that. There may be merits to the improvements Burton’s apes bear in prosthetic makeup or special effects, for example, but Burton’s characteristics are diminished when his vision is applied to pre-existing films. They may be formidably profitable films, but Burton’s recent works do not contain an image as succinctly poetic as almost any scene in Edward Scissorhands.
That said, this is an excellent film, one I’ll relent to contrast to its predecessor.
Burton has a tendency to reveal his characters’ backgrounds via poetic, rigidly composed flashbacks (Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, et al), and that doesn’t work so well here, but Depp’s Willy Wonka – his rapport of indifference with the children flocking him – is a truly idiosyncratic character. His products intend to promote happiness or love (chocolate, he notes approvingly, contains endorphins that elicit a feeling of fondness or love), they are his gifts to the world, yet he is a socially-maligned recluse, one humorously incapable of interacting with anyone other than the diminutive oompa-loompas that populate his gigantic factory. And these little people – characterized by Deep Roy and voiced by Danny Elfman – are another treat in this endearingly and cohesively odd film.
Jason’s thoughts | Matt’s thoughts
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: 35mm print
22 Aug 2005 12:36 PM | Submit Comment